SpaceX Confirms Next Starship Test Will Try to Catch the Booster

SpaceX confirmed today that the next test flight of its giant Starship booster will include the first attempt to catch the booster as it returns to Earth if all conditions are right. Reusability is the company’s watchword and it plans to recover Starship’s first stage just as it does with the much smaller Falcon 9. SpaceX is waiting for regulatory approval from the FAA and posted a statement today that they could launch as early as this coming Sunday. The FAA said last month it likely would take until the end of November to complete its review, however.

Starship is the largest rocket ever built. The first stage, Super Heavy, is powered by 33 methane-liquid oxygen Raptor engines. The second stage, Starship, has six and is the section that would deliver payloads — satellites, cargo, people — to Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars. Nine meters (29.5 feet) in diameter, together they stand 121 meters (397 feet) tall. Both are designed to be recovered and reused.

On the last test flight, IFT-4, Super Heavy made a controlled water landing in the Gulf of Mexico as a precursor to this attempt to land back at the launch site. The booster will be caught in mid-air by “chopsticks” attached to the launch tower.

Returning the booster after launch is a core capability to Starship becoming rapidly and reliably reusable pic.twitter.com/j4NSdnNiKr

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 27, 2024

The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation regulates commercial space launches and reentries and SpaceX has been complaining about licensing delays for this next flight, IFT-5.  The FAA countered that SpaceX made changes to its license application and provided new information as recently as August that required additional time to review and a final license determination “is not expected before late November 2024.”

SpaceX’s announcement today that IFT-5 might launch as soon as Sunday, October 13, came as a bit of a surprise even with the caveat that it is pending regulatory approval. Whether they’ve received an indication that approval is near or if they are trying to force FAA’s hand is unclear.

Starship’s fifth flight test is preparing to launch as soon as October 13, pending regulatory approval → https://t.co/hibmw2lVv1 pic.twitter.com/Suw1kKLHiE

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 7, 2024

SpaceX says it will only attempt to catch the booster if all conditions are right.

SpaceX is eager to proceed with test flights. It needs Starship not only to launch its second-generation Starlink satellites and other payloads, but is under contract to NASA to use Starship as the Human Landing System to take NASA astronauts from lunar orbit down to and back from the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program. The first lunar landing since the Apollo program, Artemis III, is currently scheduled for two years from now in September 2026.

SpaceX has a lot of work to do before then including at least one lunar landing test.  Starship can only travel to Earth orbit before needing to refuel at a  fuel depot. No Earth-orbiting fuel depots exist and transferring cryogenic propellant in weightlessness has not been demonstrated yet. SpaceX needs to create a depot (using Starships), fill it with fuel delivered by multiple Starships, and demonstrate refueling before it can conduct that test.

SpaceX’s longer term plans are to use Starship to send millions of people to Mars. SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk recently forecast that he would launch “about five” uncrewed Starships to Mars two years from now, and if they go well, the first crewed flights to Mars in four years.

SpaceX plans to launch about five uncrewed Starships to Mars in two years.

If those all land safely, then crewed missions are possible in four years. If we encounter challenges, then the crewed missions will be postponed another two years.

It is only possible to travel from… https://t.co/dzi03Hnyhg

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 22, 2024